perception
by ribbons-blue
Summary: The night Elijah rescues Elena from his sister…and the many pairs of eyes that observe. [Elijah x Elena] Episode 3x14


**_perception_**

**_The_ _night Elijah rescues Elena from his sister…and the many pairs of eyes that observe._**

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><p><strong><em>Kol<em>**

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><p>It has been a hundred years.<p>

A hundred long, dusty years spent entombed in a coffin, courtesy of his dear elder brother _(Kol still hasn't quite figured out how to go about getting his revenge…but annoying quips and sarcasm seem to ruffle Klaus's feathers nicely). _Time has passed him by while he slumbered, falling into the deep sleep in an age of jazz music and rumbling automobiles and impending war that only served to fan the flames of the world's crazed burning.

But he has woken up in a stranger time, one of crudeness, loudness—an unfamiliarity that taunts him mercilessly. It is the same world, but not his. Not the one he left behind.

And though he would never stoop so low as to admit it, not to his mother, not to his little sister (_who is closest to him out of all the family)_, it frightens him. It frightens him because the world is not the only thing that has morphed into something unrecognizable—but his family has too.

He realizes it tonight, idly reclining on the sofa in the family's common room, watching television with a melancholic sort of interest (_humans have truly sunk to new lows if this sort of thing qualifies as entertainment, in comparison with the raucous gatherings and spirited parties that Kol once favored in his past life)_.

Elijah enters into the room in his normally quiet manner, the deceivingly unassuming one that masked the danger lurking beneath his mild exterior. He casts a rather amused glance towards his younger brother sprawled across the couch, remarking with a raised brow, "After a hundred years on your back, you haven't any better things to do, Kol?"

Kol rolls his eyes in silent reply, giving him a slight grin. Since his boyhood Kol has respected his elder brother, silently admiring the qualities of self-control, morality, and the ability to protect…all gifts that Kol himself lacks in his impulsiveness.

Kol has always fancied himself as Elijah's favored sibling, as one who knew him quite well.

But it takes only one question to shatter that illusion.

"Brother, who exactly is Elena?"

It is an off-hand, bored inquiry, one born from watching his little sister stomp out only minutes before muttering darkly about "finding that wench Elena". After all, anyone who is capable of inciting dear little Rebekah's volatile wrath like that is well worth knowing—and Kol is in dire need of some amusing distractions.

What Kol does not expect from his simple question is such a response as the one he receives.

His brother's body visibly tenses (_a vast change from his relaxed posture only seconds ago)_ his handsome dark eyes regarding him warily now. To anyone else Elijah may have appeared as calm and placid as ever, but Kol knows better, even after over a century of separation. With Elijah it is the minute signs that truly reveal his innermost thoughts and feelings, and at the moment he was exuding an obvious air of protectiveness.

And all this at the mention of a mere _name_. Kol resists the urge to laugh wickedly at the idea of meeting this girl who has so evidently endeared herself to his stoic older brother and made an enemy of her spitfire sister. She's sure to provide him with a suitable means of…entertainment.

The thought sears through his useless veins, the lethargy beginning to slip away in droves.

"Why do you ask, Kol?" Elijah says evenly, his features schooled in blankness. The question is straightforward, unaffected—and suspicion underlies every syllable. Clearly Elijah has yet to forget Kol's past encounters with humans….few of which ended well for the other side, the _mortal _side.

Elijah's careful tone of dispassion makes Kol's eyebrows raise and a sly smirk spreads across his features. His big brother has always been the more level-headed actor of the two, but that is hardly to say Kol is inept at it. As they say, two can play at this game. And _oh_, does Kol intend to.

Unable to resist the deliciously mischievous temptation of eliciting another display of uncharacteristic emotion from his sibling, Kol mentions casually, "No reason really, brother." He stretches and gives a faux yawn, surreptitiously eyeing Elijah. "Merely that Rebekah left only minutes ago with the intention to kill her, whomever she may be." Kol flashes an innocent smile, full of sharp, shiny teeth. "Is that a problem?"

_Checkmate_, is his only thought as Elijah's (_level-headed, clever, patient, responsible Elijah) _face darkens with a fury that Kol has never seen before.

Not on Elijah, at least. But it's one he's observed on countless others.

It was an expression Father wore that time Mother had been grievously wounded by the wild beasts inhabiting the forests, setting out the next day to slaughter one creature for every slash upon her body.

It was a mask Nik had donned the day that Tatia had been lost to them forever, his eyes so maniacal and stricken that none could approach them for fear of inciting further madness.

Kol has seen it on kings and queens, paupers and peasants, foolish dandies and their twirling ingénues, common street sweepers and young milk maids…but not on Elijah.

No…not on Elijah.

He nods noiselessly as Elijah bites out a terse, "I will return shortly," and disappears in the miniscule sliver of time between heartbeats, ephemeral form seemingly melting into the air. What doesn't disappear, however, is the burning memory of his big brother's stormy eyes, like twin bolts of lightning in a sweeping flood of rain.

And somehow, the former flickering of amusement, the thirst for entertainment and diversion, has been doused by something somber, darker.

Something that frightens Kol.

He stares quietly, blankly, at the flickering television before him, ears attuned to the bustling and rustling of his family throughout the house, of everyone in the world moving on in a way he can't quite grasp.

Kol hates change.

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><p><strong><em>Rebekah<em>**

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><p>Rebekah hadn't really planned anything out carefully that night.<p>

But then again, she'd never really been renowned for her ability to plot or scheme. That had always and forever been Nik's realm of mastery—others could only pale in comparison when standing beside his ruthless intellect.

The intent of the night had been simple: kill Elena, thus achieving revenge on the back-backstabbing _bitch _and simultaneously hitting dear Nik where it hurt the most: his ability to make those pathetic hybrid lackeys of his (though _Mother_ may have forgiven her treacherous older brother, Rebekah wasn't about to cheerfully pardon someone who had blatantly _lied_ to her for over a thousand years and then _daggered _her for a hundred more. Bastard.)

It is surprisingly simple—the doppelganger really is one of the most naïve people she's ever had the misfortune of encountering. Hasn't anyone ever told her little girls shouldn't wander in the darkness? After all, Rebekah thinks as she effortlessly drops down by Elena's car, this _is_ Mystic Falls. One never knows what lurks in the darkness.

The Original can't say she gets much pleasure out of life, but she derives a sadistic form of glee from the petrified look on Elena's revoltingly beautiful face when she flickers into her view. It takes a single pounce, an elegant leap, and she is crushing the doppelganger against her car, smiling grimly at the besieged girl.

The brunette whispers her name, a fusion of fear and surprise and dread, as the blond vampire presses her harder against the cold, metal door.

When she speaks, venom drips from every word. "You drove a _dagger_ through my back, Elena," she spits in a voice sleek with rage, watching Elena's brown eyes widen with the realization of Rebekah's objective tonight. "It _hurt_," she finishes mockingly, squeezing just a little bit tighter on the last word. She won't let Elena speak—doesn't want to hear pleas or excuses or what have you. She had trusted this person, had been willing to aid her in a quest to murder her _brother_.

Only to receive a betrayal of the worst kind.

Rebekah wills her eyes to bleed crimson, feeling the tell-tale sensation of black veins webbing across her face in an intricate, deadly pattern. In one triumphant moment her fangs have descended, and she is giving in to the burning, overwhelming (_insatiable)_ desire to end this frustrating human girl. Elena is fruitlessly struggling in her hold like a helpless animal who knows it's met its end, and Rebekah allows herself a smirk and a feral snarl as Elena gives one wild cry—

-but before her teeth have even pierced the delicate flesh, Rebekah finds _herself_ being slammed against the doppelganger's car, and she is no longer looking into the frightened face of Elena, but the utterly cold one of Elijah. His hand is wrapped tightly around her throat, lithe fingers like unyielding steel bands, and Rebekah can only gasp for breath as she stares into the condemning eyes of her older brother.

"_Elijah_." Rebekah chokes out, unable to say much more as her wind is cut off.

But the threat of imminent suffocation is overwhelmed by confusion. She cannot understand it.

Elijah?

Why would Elijah, of all the people in her family, be here?

If anyone, she would have most certainly thought it would have been Nik. After all, he was the only one to have any investment, any link to this little human girl. He would be the only vampire, apart from those insufferable Salvatore _bores_, to come flying to the _fair Elena's_ rescue. Nik had, of course, regaled her with the tale of Elijah's attempt to kill him, of the brief alliance between him and the Salvatores and the human doppelganger, but it had been a mere contract made from convenience and shared necessity.

So why then, _why_ is Elijah here?

She receives her answer in the next moment, after her brother releases her throat with a swift flick of his fingers and a darkly uttered "_Leave"_, as though he cannot bear to touch her for repulsion nor see her for disappointment (_she resolutely ignores the stabbing pain shooting through her undead heart at this)_. And then, as she remains against the car breathing heavily through straining lungs, she sees it.

It is the smallest, littlest thing, but it grants the answer to her question. Oh, does it indeed.

He looks at her.

Elijah _looks_ at a tense Elena, who is watching the scene with a concerned, wide-eyed expression.

He _looks_ at her, shadowy gaze sweeping her form, clearly checking for injuries.

He _looks_ at her, with a strange sort of gentleness and worry.

He _looks_ at her, with more caring than Rebekah has ever been regarded with by anyone in her _entire life_.

Through the hundreds of dalliances and affairs she's been involved in over the centuries, through the starry-eyed suitors and hopeful beaus, and even when she and Stefan had been in their relationship, their seemingly perfect, fantasy courtship…no one has ever regarded Rebekah with the unassuming love Elijah looks at Elena with.

And from the soft, relieved glance she catches Elena giving her brother, she's not-so-haphazardly guessing those feelings aren't entirely non-existent on the little human's part either.

Suddenly, she can't stand it. Has her brother learned _nothing_ from his past dealings with Petrova girls? Will he so willingly risk his feelings once again, only to be selfishly used and cast off? Her world turns red, her injured pride and wounded vanity and turbulent emotions causing her to take a blind, disbelieving step towards her brother (_she wants to stop him, to shake him to his senses, wants to save him before he sinks into a quagmire he can never escape)_.

"Are you challenging me?" Elijah's voice is deadly soft, his words wryly amused at the idea of Rebekah being a threat to him.

Her hands clench reflexively at the tone of his voice—she is well aware that he's right. Physically she's no match for _any_ of her brothers, and though she can quite often manipulate Kol or outmaneuver Finn and beat Niklaus in a match of wits, Elijah has always been infinitely cleverer.

So she gets back at him, at _them_, in the only way she knows how: pure snark. Casting a decidedly unimpressed glance at her brother, she drawls tauntingly, "You're pathetic." _For falling in love with a human girl, for falling in love with the spitting image of one who once crushed your heart. _Her chilly gaze turns to Elena next. "_Both_ of you."

Then she disappears.

From the corner of her eye as she darts away, she can already make out Elijah turning towards Elena, his body angled towards hers protectively as he steps closer (_Vampires are hunters_, her mind whispers to her darkly. _Not protectors. Not protectors)_. Even as she sprints through the empty streets of Mystic Falls, Rebekah can picture the surely-nauseating scene perfectly in her mind. Her brother will still be giving _that look_ to Elena, and the oh-so-innocent little doppelganger will be smiling in the ridiculously guileless, trusting way of hers.

And Rebekah knows, she absolutely _knows_, that nothing will be able to harm Elena Gilbert tonight.

She knows this, just as she recognizes the burning, smoldering torch of jealousy deep within, those last few embers of humanity she's been unable to fully douse fanning the flames on such a human emotion. Being privy to the wordless connection between her brother and Elena has cultivated something deep and ugly within her, something that hurts and stabs and twists far more painfully than any ancient dagger is capable of.

Maybe she's jealous of Elena being able to effortlessly capture Elijah; that after several lifetimes of waiting for the family to be reunited, her brother will never be completely theirs ever again.

Maybe she's jealous because of the goodness she (_however unwillingly)_ sees in Elena; the light that draws people shrouded in darkness and cloaked in hopelessness to her.

Maybe she's jealous because Elena is so loved, in so many ways, and because she _deserves_ that love…and perhaps Rebekah does not because when she became a vampire, when she took her first taste of coppery human blood or made her first human kill, something inside of her irreparably broke.

Rebekah hates jealousy.

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><p><strong><em>Finn<em>**

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><p>He's lost count of how many seconds, minutes, hours he's been sitting out here, the numbness of his body matching the listlessness of his mind.<p>

Finn believes that he would give anything to repossess the ability to truly experience the night's stirring wind against his skin, the chill in the air upon his lips, the sharp cut of blades of grass against his fingertips. Immortality, invincibility—all would be sacrificed in return for the simple gift of human _sensation_…of _feeling_.

But it is not to be.

He inhales deeply, trying desperately to fill the lungs that have not tasted the damp night air for over nine hundred years now, to shake away the memories of being enclosed, entrapped like an _animal_ in need of being locked away. Needless to say—it doesn't quite work; the panic of suffocating _nothingness_ has not yet faded. And Finn suspects that it will be another great many sunrises and sunsets before he will ever again take breathing and wide open space for granted.

A very, very many.

Resting motionlessly on the steps leading to his brother's grandiose mansion, Finn stares out across the sweeping lawn rippling peacefully before him, eyes tracing the twisting green lines that lead to the edges of the extensive clustering of trees and wildlife. Since awakening, Finn has pondered his half-brother's choice of locating their new home—built on the precipice of the forest that encompasses the little town, hidden in a solitary way that allows it to neither see nor be seen by prying eyes…Finn is reminded, ever so slightly, of the past. It is enough to cause bitter nostalgia to bubble up within him, resentment at the _what-could-have-been_ and _what-came-to-be_ throbbing in the spot formerly occupied by his heart.

Sometimes, looking at the secluded house his brother has constructed, a tiny world in which their family is meant to dwell in, Finn wonders if Niklaus feels something similar.

It's more likely he's merely being his usual paranoid self though.

"Finn?"

His head lifts quickly at the familiar sound of his name falling from his brother's lips. Elijah is standing before him in a relaxed fashion, hands idly buried in pockets and back straight.

At this welcomed sight, something inside of Finn loosens, crippling isolation yielding when confronted with the warming presence of _family_. Of togetherness.

"I was waiting for you to return." Finn's voice is rough from the many centuries that he has been deprived of speech and interaction, deepening it almost unnaturally. Slowly, carefully, he rises up off of the porch, no sign but the lurking light in his dark eyes betraying his pleasure at seeing his older brother. "I wished to speak with you, Brother. We have not yet had the chance." The words flow from his lips in their native Scandinavian tongue, giving him comfort in a way the difficult, harsh language of the modern day does not.

(_"Brother," a much younger Finn leapt off of the fallen tree trunk, eagerly pattering over to his approaching elder sibling. "I was waiting for you to return. Will you play with me now?"_

_Elijah smiles and drops his hunting tools, long dark hair falling into his eyes as he crouches down before his younger brother. One hand affectionately ruffles the curly brown head in front of him, gaze warmly regarding the shy boy. _

"_Of course, Finn.")_

"Forgive me, Finn," Elijah apologizes quietly in the same vein of language, his aptitude to do so clearly undiminished by a lack of practice (_but then again, his brother has always excelled at whatever he chose to accomplish)_. His hand briefly reaches out to squeeze Finn's shoulder in a gesture of brotherhood. "I had something I needed to do. But tomorrow we will speak, I promise."

Finn's brow furrows in confusion at Elijah's distractedness, at his distant words and detached expression. Elijah is already heading up the stairs in that cultured, elegant manner that has always been inherent in his movements; such a thing is as innate to his older brother as it is for the river fish to glide with the current, or for creatures of the sky to sail with the wind.

It is the sight of his brother's back (_as straight and unyielding as ever, strong under the burdens their very nature has placed upon them)_, a sight which threatens to send Finn back into the hellish solitude that had plagued him for so long, that causes him to say anything, _anything_, that will impede Elijah's leaving.

"Was it very important?" Finn's gruff baritone successfully stops Elijah, his hand still poised on the brass doorknob. The panic of being abandoned (_alone, alone, alone)_ briefly subsides. "What you needed to accomplish?"

A strange look overcomes his older brother's face then, a humorless smile touching upon his lips. A sudden discomfort seizes hold of Finn, for Elijah has never been one to gaze through him, unwaveringly being one of the few beings who could see shy, withdrawn, quiet Finn for Finn. But Elijah's gaze is far beyond him now, past the point of Finn's reach, of any possibility of reclaiming his attention.

"Yes, Finn," he murmurs, his black eyes inscrutable. "It was of…the utmost importance."

His brother gives him one fleeting, absentminded glance (_mind captured by something invisible to Finn)_ and bids him a quiet goodnight, slipping into the house before Finn's solemn stare.

It is with a nearly inaudible _thump_ that Finn slides back down into his previous sitting position on the expansive porch front, the mildly hard impact ricocheting throughout his body in a pleasant reminder of what it is to be _alive._ His eyes become trained on the whispering grass before him once again, dispassionately observing the swaying sea of green, each emerald blade moving in tandem with its fellow brothers and sisters.

Surrounded.

Safe.

He's lost count of how many seconds, minutes, hours he's been sitting out here, the numbness of his body matching the listlessness of his mind.

He wonders how many more seconds, minutes, hours more he must endure out here alone, while Elijah pursues that thing of such importance, and Kol and Rebekah laugh and wrestle and tease as they have always done, and Klaus avoids his gaze out of something strangely akin to remorse.

Finn hates loneliness.

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><p><strong><em>Esther<em>**

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><p>The house is quiet, and it is this silence that makes it all the more noticeable when the soft creaking of the front doors being opened and closed catches her ears.<p>

The lush carpet tickles strangely against her bare feet as she pads her way into the foyer, the twisting halls and arched ceilings of the house somehow reminding her of the grand manors and sweeping castles one would find in the Europe of old (_a Europe, she knows, no longer exists)_. Since awakening, she's hardly left the house—she supposes it's a combination of unease and bitterness; a fright of the outside world and anger over the life she has been denied.

But that hardly matters, anymore, she tells herself. In mere days, it will all come to an end.

Just a few days.

_(She swallows the hard lump in her throat as she thinks of all her children sleeping in their rooms upstairs, together at long last). _

She comes upon the foyer; pale fingers pushing open the heavy wooden door.

And for the first time in a millennia, as Esther watches her eldest son quietly making his way up the stairs during such a late hour, Esther feels like a mother again (_fueled by unbidden memories of early dawn and Elijah and Klaus stealing into their home after a night of adventuring, boyishly sheepish grins meeting her stern gaze) _. The thought is nearly enough to bring a smile to her naturally solemn face, but not quite.

"Elijah?" Her voice is almost muted, but her son is, of course, more than capable of detecting it. He turns around, respectfully halting his progress at the soft-spoken call of his mother.

He looks…tired, she notices immediately, heart squeezing automatically at the observation. There is a strange tautness about his body, a tension that she can't identify. But there is something else as well, a kind of contentment that had not been in his aura earlier, when she had last seen him. Wordlessly, she stretches her hand out to him, waiting patiently until he has descended the stairs and allowed her to pull him into the parlor (_she marvels at Elijah's unquestionable trust in her, his devotion and obedience to his mother—the resultant pang of guilt is sharply ignored)_.

She shuts the door with a brisk snap, gesturing to the couch with a wave of her hand. "Please, Elijah, sit."

The thought that she shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be allowing herself to become attached in this manner crosses her mind, but she resolutely pushes it into the back of her head, banishing it with all of the other doubts and distress that she harbors. Elijah has dutifully, if not amusedly, seated himself as directed, and Esther finds herself at an abrupt loss of words as she does the same.

"You are back…late." She smoothes down nonexistent wrinkles in her flawless dress.

If Elijah has any similar hesitancy or misgivings about conversing with her, it does not show. "And you are up rather late, Mother."

His words trigger another onset of a weariness that she has been ferociously battling ever since her return, a weariness that originates from fighting to thrive within a world that recognizes your impossibility of existence and resents your for it—nature, Esther knows, is none too pleased with her and her skirting of death at the moment.

Still, she masks her discomfort, instead fixing her son with a piercing stare. "Being dead for a thousand years tends to have unwanted effects upon you, Elijah." She raises an eyebrow at him, unaware of her sudden overt resemblance to her blond-haired son in one of his querulous moods. "A lack of fatigue is one such effect."

Elijah inclines his head. "Point taken."

"But," she comments without pause, "I meant to ask if…all is well with you, Elijah?" The question tumbles strangely from her tongue, dulled from the curse of time.

A secretive smile plays around his mouth, and a hint of mirth permeates dark eyes for a single moment. "Quite well, I should imagine."

Thinking of the odd satisfaction that she had noted in his air only moments earlier, wondering at what could have occurred to ease her son's spirit so, she adds questioningly, "And now in particular?"

"Indeed."

Elijah is clearly unwilling to expound on that short statement; Esther is equally unwilling to pry any deeper (_the pounding beat of _too close, too close, too close_ resounds in her head, reminding her to guard against the motherly instinct of once again learning who her children are). _

It is then that Elijah interlocks his fingers in an idle motion, indiscernibly surveying her as one would a fidgeting child who is blatantly lying. "Why don't we end this pretense, Mother?" He suggests lightly. "For if my memory serves me correctly," he says without preamble or pause, "You are no more prone to idle conversation than Finn is."

An image of her taciturn, sullen son arises in her mind's eye, and she gives a humorless smile at the thought of such a trait being passed on through her. "Very well," she intones, allowing all attempts at motherly concern or familial camaraderie to fade away. "Niklaus has told me that you are well acquainted with the Doppelganger?" She inquires brusquely, hearing echoes of his indignant rants of Elijah's previous scheming with the little human girl to bring about Niklaus's permanent demise.

_And perhaps more well acquainted than anyone truly knows_, she thinks as she watches her son tense slightly, then lean back against the couch as he taps his fingers speculatively against his mouth. Esther must resist the urge to shift uncomfortably, for Elijah's dark eyes are perhaps a little too knowing for her liking. Years trapped in the world beyond have dulled her memory—she's forgotten, to her detriment, how perceptive her eldest son has always been.

"And why," he says in a deceptively nonchalant tone, "Is that relative, Mother?"

Esther gives her son a brittle smile, mouth unused to the happy expression after centuries of disuse. "Because I would very much enjoy meeting her, of course. There are…many things I would like to apologize for, and to speak of to her. I thought it best if the meeting were orchestrated by someone _close_ to her, perhaps—"

"No."

Elijah's composed voice slices through her words as effortlessly as a knife through butter, the interruption and unyielding look about her son startling Esther for the first time in…quite a while. Any secretive smiles or darts of humor are gone, vanished, replaced only with an immovably serious mask.

"What?" Had surprise not been coursing through her veins like a wildfire, Esther might have been able to scrounge up the necessary amusement at Elijah, devoted, mild tempered Elijah, opposing her so openly (_it is only later that she considers he is still the same devoted Elijah, but it is to another that he solely entrusts that feeling to)._

Elijah regards her with steady eyes, his face indecipherable. "I said _no_. The mere fact that you wish to apologize means that you are more than aware of the pain this family has caused her." The unspoken _I've caused her_ lingers in the air, and is read easily in the rapid flash of regret in his gaze and the tightening of his jaw. "The best kindness you can give that girl now, Mother, is to stay far away from her."

"Elijah…" But she is startled, and her planned words trail off ineffectively.

He stands abruptly, wandering over to stand at the far window and stare blindly into the far-reaching night. His back is all she can see; his expressions hidden from view. And Esther can only suppose this had been his exact intention (_she suppresses the burst of hurt at the unspoken exclusion from being privy to her son's emotions, whereas he had once shared everything troubling his mind so willingly). _

Esther is roused from the disconcerting feelings threatening to crack her iron resolve as Elijah's cool voice drifts to her ears, long out of practice in the realm of listening.

"You should know as well…I've promised her that no harm will befall her at our hands." His form leans against the window frame, one hand tracing an idle pattern upon the glass panes. "And I do not intend to be made a liar out of." Elijah's voice deepens into a low rumble, determination and danger merging into one. "Not this time."

It is not without a harsh sense of irony that Esther thinks of how Elijah's promise and honor will remain intact—for it is not the girl she has any interest in harming.

"What is she like?" The words slip from her lips before she can check them, her interest unwillingly, worriedly piqued by her son's insensible protectiveness of this girl. The memory of the first Petrova girl, as well as the unforgivable pain and deep rooted tension she had spawned between her sons, is still acrimoniously fresh in her mind. "Niklaus tells me she is the _second_ Doppelganger of Tatia to have been born." Though she speaks casually, she stares hard at the dark-haired man standing motionlessly across the room, his body as still as the marble statues that line the hallways of this house.

She hears Elijah scoff slightly at that, followed by a darkly muttered, "He _would_ describe her as such."

A frown works its way into Esther's impassive façade. Niklaus's impersonal, clinical attitude towards the most recent incarnation of his first love had been surprising, but not unwelcome. Elijah's seemingly emotional investment in her, however…

"Know that I will follow your wishes on this matter, Elijah," she concedes in a hardened voice, pausing briefly before continuing. "But a word of caution, for if you are close as you seem to her," Esther sighs out disapprovingly, conveying all of her vexation in that one noise, "And if she is anything like Tatia was…"

Even as those words leave her lips, her son swiftly turns, gaze boring into hers.

"She is not Tatia," Elijah tells her directly, unhesitatingly, sensing her darkening mood as she thinks of the woman in question. He crosses the room (_in the normal, human way, as though he guesses at her well-hidden discomfort at her children's preternatural abilities, a discomfort that has been her constant companion since the cursed day she turned them), _and kneels before her, as he once did as a young child.

His hand reaches out to cover hers, reassuring and gentle and with an empathy that has always made her eldest son the kindest, most unique, of all her children. "She is…wholly unselfish." Whether he is aware of it or not, Elijah's expression softens almost imperceptibly.

And in that darkened little parlor, a thousand years from where they first began, those four words tell her exactly what Esther needs to know…about a great many things.

It is these four words that will resonate unceasingly, restlessly, within her mind as she sits down at her writing desk an hour later, pulling out a perfect square of paper that will eventually become an invitation addressed to Elena Gilbert…

…with a special addendum on the back.

Elijah's face rises hazily within her mind, that tentative, hopeful _something_ in his voice, in his eyes, striking deep within her.

_She is…wholly unselfish. _

Esther hates what she has become.

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><p><strong><em>Elijah<em>**

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><p><strong><em>—<em>**

**_—_**

**_—_**

_(for it matters not what others see, but what we find before our very eyes)_

_—_

_—_

_—_

It has been many long days since Damon saw fit to remove the dagger from him, days since he first encountered his brother in the parlor after awakening, and days since he has reunited his long-desired family.

Yet it is only when he sees Elena Gilbert's gentle, welcoming smile and warm chocolate eyes in the midst of an empty parking lot that he takes his first breath of being _alive_.

Sometimes, Elijah truly hates irony.

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><p><strong><em>Author's note:<em> I wrote this on a spur of the moment after going back and watching "Dangerous Liaisons" again-I'm sorry, but that scene where Elijah rescues Elena from Rebekah continues to be one of my favorite Elejah moments to this very day :P Thus, a fic detailing that night from the eyes of his family ensued.**

**Hope everyone enjoyed! I appreciate all forms of reviews, including constructive criticism, thoughtful feedback, or just plain ol' happy reviews from other Elena/Elijah shippers!**


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